


the stumbling phase of the midnight waltz

by haloud



Series: open up my eager eyes [6]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Praise Kink, kyle features only very lightly in this one but it's still a part of my mylex series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 16:07:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19088452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud
Summary: Alex and Kyle leave Roswell at the same time for separate reasons. Alone, there’s nothing to dull the scratching in Michael's skull, not the booze, not the acetone, not the grasping hands of a stranger. There’s just Michael, and he’s less than nothing in the yawning face of loneliness.Always has been.





	the stumbling phase of the midnight waltz

**Author's Note:**

> title comes once again from fear and trembling by gang of youths
> 
> content warnings to be aware of this time:  
> \- descriptions of addiction and withdrawal symptoms, though no character actively experiences withdrawal or substance use  
> \- codependent behavior  
> \- fear of abandonment  
> \- michael's mental state is pretty rough in general for most of the fic
> 
> this fic is not for redistribution without my express permission.

Alex makes one stop before he hits 285 and leaves town for a few days in Albuquerque with his old unit. Liz meets him at the Crashdown’s back door, but she doesn’t hold out her hand for the key he’s trying to give her.

“Does he know you’re giving me this?” She asks, arms folded, gaze levelled at the cracked rubber of the old UFO Emporium keychain instead of anywhere near Alex’s face.

“Life is too uncertain; we’re big on emergency contacts these days. Kyle won’t be back from his conference until after I get back. Turns out he’d rather it be you than Max or Isobel. All he said when I asked was ‘she gets it better.’” Alex shrugs. “I trust you, too. I didn’t press him.”

Liz lets him hand her the key and shoves it quickly into the pocket of her robe. This isn’t a responsibility she ever expected, not an honor she ever thought to receive. After the way Michael reacted when circumstances forced them together into his lab, she had mostly expected—made her contingency plans—for Isobel to encourage her to forget what she saw. And the temptation is there—to make copies of the key; to sneak in when she knows it’s empty; to break all sorts of trusts to scratch the _what if_ at the back of her mind. What if there’s some secret hiding away to help Rosa? To help Mimi? To protect her father?

A couple miles away and a hundred feet underground, Michael thinks in what ifs too. Alex and Kyle are right to want someone to have the ability to check in. Project Shepherd may have been an illicit operation, but operatives could still be out there. Employees from Caulfield looking for revenge. Other aliens like Noah. What if Liz can’t be trusted after all? He’ll change the locks, of course, once Alex and Kyle come home. Whatever damage she can do in the interim they’ll have to deal with one-on-one.

He’s almost looking forward to it. Secrets and science both, Michael thinks that Liz Ortecho just might be his best match.

\--

Day one, Michael doesn’t even notice the bulk of it pass. It’s stuffy and hot like a forge in his underground lab because one of his fans got busted. The heat should be unbearable. He already wasted half the day moving temperature-sensitive items to his much-less-secure trailer, so he should be worn to the bone with anxiety. But mostly he’s just glad to have something to do with his hands, something to do with his brain. He strips off his sweat-soaked white shirt, knots his hair on top of his head, sets his tongue between his teeth, and gets to work.

It’s an okay day, all things considered. He straddles his stepladder to get at the right angle to reach the back panel, and with a few awkwardly-angled cranks of his wrench, the fan comes back online with a crunch. He falls back against the wall and lets out a whoop of relief as stale but _moving_ air teases the tiny curls that have escaped from his bun to cling to his neck. Satisfied, he grabs his phone from the nearby worktable and snaps a few selfies. Himself, flush with triumph and the haloed halogens of his bunker, smudged with grease and his own honest sweat, his hand sliding suggestively through the trail of hair on his abdomen.

Neither Alex nor Kyle respond, and when Michael pulls himself out of his hole in the ground to look for a shower, the sun hasn’t even finished setting.

Alex could be driving if he and the guys decided to have a night out, Michael thinks while he soaps himself up mechanically. Or at a restaurant, a bar, somewhere where he wouldn’t be looking at his phone. Kyle is definitely busy, definitely surrounded by people he wants to impress. It was stupid to even send the pictures in the first place. Michael ducks his head under the spray and turns it straight to cold and doesn’t step out until his knees start to shake.

Bare-skinned and shivering in the chilly night air, he wraps his arms around himself, but he just stands staring at the wide, soft bed the three of them share. Using the shower or the kitchen as a tool is one thing, but the bed, the couches, all the spaces where life takes place—it feels like Alex’s first, then Kyle’s history, something they share together. Without either of them there it doesn’t feel right.

Fighting down the anxiety beating wings against his ribs, he wrestles into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and stalks outside, across the ground to where his Airstream stays parked almost all the time, these days.

The moment his back hits the bunk, he knows he’s made a mistake. It would feel a little like grief, a little like loneliness, to wrap himself up in a duvet meant for three and try not to scream into the silence. But here, in the one place that’s been something like a home to him, he can’t breathe at all. No one echoes off these walls but him. He knows with the heart-attack certainty of himself a half-decade past that if he closes his eyes he’s gonna wake to an American flag and a hole in the ground.

He scrambles out of bed, bruises his knees on the metal sheet floor. He spends the night sleepless in a corner of the lab.

\--

Day two, Michael gets a dozen or so texts, a half-dozen unanswered calls. Not that he’d know; he left his phone under the bed, so the weight of silence didn’t hit so heavy. He takes Isobel out for lunch because if she sees him she won’t freak out if he doesn’t answer his phone all day.

Kyle rolls his eyes every time he’s sent to voicemail and decides not to worry. It’s not unusual for Michael to bury himself in the lab, and it only makes sense that he’d be even worse about it with no one to keep tabs on him. Everything will probably be fine.

Alex almost hits the city limits before he takes a deep breath and decides to turn back around. Someone would have called him if there was trouble; Michael would be mortified if Alex burst in like the world was ending just because he forgot to check his messages. He’d blame himself for “ruining” Alex’s vacation.

Everything will be okay.

\--

The knock comes first, then the key scrapes in the lock at three a.m. on the third night. The numbers and diagrams have just started swimming off the page.

“Don’t be dead, Michael,” Liz calls down. “One undead alien per town is definitely more than enough.”

The smell of fresh fries and boozy milkshakes precedes her down the ladder. Her eyelids look as dark and heavy as Michael’s feel. He drops his pen and goes over to take the drinks from her before she falls and breaks her neck and finally gives Max a reason to take him out.

“What are you doing here, Ortecho?”

She snags her shake back from him and takes three long gulps before she answers. “Electricians kicked me out at the hospital, and I didn’t have anything delicate enough in progress to give me an excuse to stay. I figured I’d find you here. If I have to take a break then so do you.”

“Says who?” Michael says, already digging in to the fries and flying sauce. Turns out it’s probably been even longer since he’s eaten than it’s been since he slept.

“Says Earth rules, obviously.” She wobbles a little bit, and Michael shuffles over to clear a spot where she can sit.

“Oh, _Earth_ rules. My bad. The ‘mad science’ pages were missing from my orientation packet.”

“Damn. They just can’t get anything right these days, huh?”

“I’ll drink to that.”

They knock their Styrofoam cups together, and Michael says a silent toast to understanding.

\--

Liz is a good friend—or the kind of person who tries to be, which is just about the closest thing Michael has ever had to the real thing, and more reliable to boot. Isobel is always, incontrovertibly, Isobel; Max is something else entirely. He and Maria, they were a mistake made twice over, and it makes it hard for them to share a space these days, but there will always be an understanding there between them that once made them think they’d be good. Michael has a support system now, after all those years alone. He has his people, people who care about him.

Alex hasn’t even been gone a week, and none of it is enough. He’s got feet crawling under his skin; he’s got the shakes like an addict, and Michael knows from addiction. More desperate than he’d been that first night, he roots around in their bed for a little hair of the dog, but no amount of secondhand scent will ever be a strong enough hit. He stretches out one of Kyle’s tight henleys and curls up like a dog in front of the empty fire with only Alex’s leather jacket as a blanket. Sleep never comes, or it comes in bare, panicked snatches. There’s nothing to dull the scratching in his skull, not the booze, not the acetone, not the grasping hands of a stranger.

There’s just him, and he’s less than nothing in the yawning face of loneliness. Always has been.

Is the specter of pride enough? Kyle’s uncomplicated, unselfconscious excitement for the progress Michael has made? And Alex—Alex is so steady, so strong, Michael can still feel him all around him, and it _should_ be, _should be—_

But Michael has never been good on his own. Never been good enough at ignoring all the clamor and chaos in his head, the whispers that they’re _never coming back,_ that Alex’s unit could be compromised, that Kyle’s all alone in a crowd and it’s not safe, that without Michael there to stand at heel they could get hurt in so many stupid, accidental ways.

Michael whines and grinds his face into the rug. The muscles of his back twist and twitch as he tries to flex out the tension pulling him apart. He could call Alex. Wrap himself up in his warm, vital voice, in the sound of his breathing. It would be a few moments of relief. But Alex deserves better. He deserves to be able to take a few days to meet up with people so important to him without worrying that Michael will hurt himself or piss on the floor.

He’s not even sure what day it is. He’s been afraid to look at his phone, afraid to see that less time has passed than it should, afraid he’ll be weak and have Alex ringing on the other line before he can stop himself.

For most of his life, Michael has been a staple at the Roswell branch library, a tourist in every section and a local in some. Science fiction, of course, and physics, astrophysics, and psychology. He found himself in books, tried for a while to therapize himself when there was no one else who could or no one else who cared. Codependency, trauma, abandonment, avoidance, he has the words for the things raking at his insides, but no way to make it stop.

His burning mind gives out just as the sun comes up, and he falls asleep with his arms covering his head.

\--

It could be the fourth day; it could be the fifth. Michael thinks counting would be pathetic. He wraps himself in a heavy old quilt and sits in the weak morning sun, searching for peace. His hands ache for the weight and feel of silken smooth wood; his mind aches for the quiet. But that phantom pain is too old now to inspire any self-pity.

He folds one hand over his heart. Clutched in its palm is a battered black-and-red pick, one its owner never noticed was missing from its stolen case. Over the last decade, he never buried it with the other memories that hurt too much. He wore it over his heart instead, like dog tags. It centers him now, like it has before, when it was less than a splinter of hope that he’d ever get to have what he has now.

Alex will be home in a few days. He can make it that far.

He’s made it longer and longer before, after all.

\--

On the sixth day, a car pulls up to the cabin. The day is dark gray; it’s probably morning still, but Michael’s internal clock wishes he could crawl back into bed. It’s quiet; the car’s approach barely pricks at the edge of Michael’s hypervigilant hearing. It drops dread into his stomach; he doesn’t feel like dealing with Max or Isobel today. Doesn’t feel like much of anything, really. He feels how he thinks being sick must feel, and he’s so sapped of energy that standing barefoot in the kitchen eating dry cereal is a Herculean effort.

The footsteps on the stairs make an uneven beat, but they’re firm and steady. There’s a jingle of keys, then the catch of the lock, and

And Michael can’t _breathe,_ he sways forward and only just catches himself with a hand on the counter, flinging his bowl into the sink so he can wrap the other arm around his middle, and

“Guerin?” Alex call into the cabin, his voice light and warm and happy to be be _home_ and oh _god_

Michael’s mouth opens and closes, but no words come out. He clutches at himself; he rubs his hands over his own arms like he can prepare his touch-starved skin for someone else’s touch. He gulps down enough oxygen to feed his brain. He turns on the water to hide the sound. He composes himself before Alex follows it to him.

“There you are,” Alex says from the doorway. There’s a smile in his voice; his footsteps are eager as he crosses the room. He leans his hip against the cabinet and bends in to look at Michael’s face through the curtain of his hair. He’s not smiling now. That little line has appeared between his brows. His arms are folded, and his thumb runs back and forth in the crook of his own elbow. Michael grits his teeth, ducks his head, and his knuckles go white on the countertop.

Even so, his voice comes out gruff but normal sounding when he says, “You’re back early. Everything all right?”

“Mm, yeah. Fisher had some sort of emergency and a few of the others took it as an excuse to break early. Reconnecting with the guys is important, but it’s not easy for everyone, you know?”

“Fisher ok?”

“Oh yeah, it was just his…ferret, or his car or something, and—Look, Guerin, look at me.”

The small part of Michael that likes the hurt because it’s familiar holds him still, waits for the kick. What he gets instead is Alex speaking again, impossibly soft, “May I touch you?” A single, jerky nod, and then the pad of his thumb touches the sharpest part of Michael’s jaw. His palm follows it, a broad, gentle stroke against the side of Michael’s face that sets him shaking, all of him, lips and hands and knees.

Like he can’t help himself, like it’s all he’s ever wanted, like it’s basest instinct, Alex’s other hand mirrors the first, cupping all of Michael’s mind between them, gentling him and pulling him forward so their foreheads press together.

“I missed you,” Alex says. Their breaths mingle together, and it’s enough to keep Michael’s lungs working.

“Oh yeah? That sucks. I barely even noticed you were gone,” Michael pants. Alex’s shaky laugh is everything, so he leans in and devours it, bites at his mouth, sucks at his tongue. Alex lets him work, eggs him on with gasps and groans and fingertips teasing the aching roots of Michael’s hair.

Finally, after Michael’s kisses have gone all sloppy and slow, Alex pulls him back and holds him still and says, “Are you ready for me to tell you what you need?”

 _God_ yes. _Please._ The words alone are almost enough to get Michael floating.

Alex grips the scruff of Michael’s neck heavy and Michael _keens_ soft and whiny and pathetic, choking on air and desperation. It’s not enough, this single point of contact; he wants to be collared, full-body, and kept, and owned. Leashed so Alex always knows where to find him, even if some deep-down instinct tells him to go chasing. Tagged so any goddamn stranger who picks him up knows he’s not for them.

“You’ve been neglected this past week, haven’t you, Guerin?” Alex asks, low and dangerous against the shell of his ear. Michael tries to shake his head—tell him no, no, it’s not possible, it’s all okay now that Alex is _here_ —but Alex is holding him too tight for him to get any traction.

Alex grips him tighter, and his trembling thighs give out.

“You look good down there, but that’s not what I had in mind for you today. And I had a _long_ time driving back to think of how I’m going to make it up to you.”

“Anything. Anything you want, that’s all, I don’t care—”

“Shh, I know. I know. You’re so good to me, Michael. And because you’re so good, here’s how it’s going to be: you’re going to let yourself come, and I’m not going to stop until I think you’ve had enough. That’s how I’m taking care of you tonight—making you feel so good it hurts.”

Giddy fear chases boneless surrender through Michael’s blood—a familiar emotional cocktail Alex inspires in him. Nothing hurts, and it tastes better than acetone at the back of his throat.

He sways forward—almost faceplants into Alex’s crotch, but sure hands divert him to the side and press his face into the hollow of Alex’s hip. The scent there is heady and addictive. Michael’s eyes flutter shut; saliva pools beneath his tongue.

“You get to pick how you want it first and last. What do you want?” Alex says, re-settling his hands firmly on Michael’s shoulders.

There’s only one real answer. Michael pulls back just enough to look Alex in the eye, though it makes his body cry out to be back curled against the warmth of Alex’s thighs. Holding that safe, dark gaze, Michael grinds the heel of his hand into the flannel-covered bulge of his cock and drop open his bruised-red mouth.

Alex grins at his reaction, satisfied, knowing. He presses his thumb to Michael’s tongue; the eager muscles at the back of his throat work to swallow around nothing at all.

“I thought that might be your choice,” he says, “But first, undress us both. I want to feel you—all of you.”

Michael presses a grateful, worshipful kiss to the inside of Alex’s wrist, tasting the delicate skin there with just the tip of his tongue, before standing up. How does Alex always just _know?_ Michael needs skin on skin tonight; needs to find a heartbeat wherever his hands land without having to search it out through layers of protection. Skin on skin will also make this go much faster; Michael is too raw, too needy for anything else, and his sensitivity will turn painful that much quicker as well. But it’s worth the cost to feel _real_ again.

Michael’s own clothes are disposed of quickly, his pajama pants stripped and launched telekinetically across the room. With Alex, though, he takes his time, and Alex takes his time with him. Michael smooths his palms across the cotton-covered planes of Alex’s chest; he rolls the shirt up slowly and bends to kiss and nuzzle at each new inch of skin revealed. In return, Alex feeds him his fingers one by one, letting him stretch his jaw and taste his fill. Michael traces Alex’s belt buckle with his fingertip; he fumbles a bit at the clasp when the smell of new leather fills his senses. He unties Alex’s laces and sits obediently as he steps out of his shoes. Alex rewards him with a long tease of a kiss.

The sound of Alex’s zipper is thunderous in the quiet room. Michael almost misses the challenge of peeling him out of those tight-tight jeans he used to wear, but this is good too, the looser fit letting Michael keep all his movements dreamy and slow. Next, he rolls off Alex’s underwear, finally revealing his cock—hard and just starting to bead wet at the tip and Michael licks his suddenly dry lips. But he’s good; he won’t lean in and drink his fill until he’s given permission.

“Excellent, Guerin; you did so well,” Alex says against his lips. Michael moans weakly at the touch, at the praise. It’s hard to walk as Alex leads him to the bedroom, where Michael kneels beside the bed as Alex follows the methodical steps to care for his leg. Then finally, _finally,_ Alex spreads his thighs and welcomes Michael in between them.

There’s a reason this is one of Michael’s favorite things, and it’s this: with Alex’s hands in his hair, his head settled in the cradle of Alex’s hips, the whole world melts away. There’s no sound from outside the window; there’s no exposure in the back of his mind waiting to jump at new hands on his back. The whole world is right here, in the barest rhythmic flex of Alex’s hips, in Michael’s own sounds of pleasure. There’s only one taste, only one scent, and it’s heaven.

Alex indulges him for a while, long enough to build up a friction-heat in his soft palate and coat his chin with drool. “This is about you,” he says, “So you can come as many times as you want. But you can’t make me come just yet.”

Michael whines in disappointment but doesn’t protest. Alex always gives him what he needs. He feeds his dick back into Michael’s throat and lets it rest there until Michael brings himself to his first orgasm of the night. In the aftershocks, Alex pulls him in close and whispers love against his skin. Michael drifts in the waking sleep of Alex taking care of him. Here, he can be as small and safe as he needs, feeding the trust that’s always been there between them and has at last been watered and brought to light until it’s big enough to hold them both.

The day goes on, nothing but the two of them and their bodies twined together. For Michael’s second orgasm, Alex takes him hard while Michael clings to the headboard and arches all the way off the bed, begging in snatches of a half-dozen languages he only learned so he could be filthy. Third, he keeps himself still, keeps himself _good,_ lying there and taking it as Alex sucks him down and past the point of raw pain.

“I want one more out of you,” Alex says afterward, rubbing soothing circles into Michael’s chest. It’s too much, it’s going to be too much, but Michael’s toes still curl and he’d be purring if it was possible. If Alex says he can do it, he can do it.

So Michael goes onto his belly with his knees beneath him, ass lifted and presenting as Alex fucks him like something precious. Michael’s eyes blur with tears; his head is swimmy and light. Everything aches; everything in him feels like new, like being Alex’s again.

\--

He sleeps for a while. Heavy and good. Alex stays beside him the whole time and gets through a solid few chapters of a book he’s been meaning to read, until his own eyelids grow heavy and he succumbs to the living temptation that is Michael Guerin warming his bed.

They have things to talk about tomorrow. No matter how much it’s wanted, needed, or deserved, it’s too hard for them to be apart after everything they’ve put themselves and each other through. One day this codependency will become a far uglier thing.

But those are thoughts for tomorrow, and healable ones. Right now, he finds himself falling asleep next to Michael made fucked-out and fluid, and there aren’t any other thoughts that matter.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first fic i've written from michael's pov and oof ouch it took a lot out of me. i think that's why i was driven to add the parts with liz because pls i want them to be friends LET MICHAEL HAVE A FRIEND
> 
> please let me know if there are any additional tags or content warnings I should add. Thanks for reading!
> 
> discord @ haloud  
> tumblr @ cosmicsolipsism


End file.
